“Slash’s wife grabbed hold of the steering wheel because he was heading toward a canyon. We were in the back seat going, ‘Nooo!’” Jamie Moses on the wild ride of playing with Brian May, hanging with Slash and his time as Queen’s second guitarist

From the second Jamie Moses laid hands on a cheap Silvertone guitar, a life in the music industry became his only aim in life.

“You’ve got to make it work. You’ve got to have ambition,” he tells Guitar World. “Today it’s a completely different setup – kids don’t play in pubs for next to nothing and spend the whole night sweating to work their way up, which is a real shame. They’re missing out.”

After putting in his hours, he secured a gig with The Animals’ Eric Burdon in the late ’80s, even though he felt his style wasn’t a match, before hooking up with Brian May’s solo band in the early ’90s.

That morphed into his gig as Queen’s second guitarist from 1998 through 2009. Moses has since played Mike and the Mechanics, Broken English and others, and with his own band, Los Pacaminos.

Asked what’s kept him around, Moses says: “There’s a million guitar players and a lot of them are better than me. But not every guitar player can sing. If you can, that’s one less person to hire, one less wage, one less hotel and one less flight. It’s a no-brainer. If you can do that, it’s important.”

How has being a self-taught guitarist impacted your journey?

“In around 1965, when I was 10, all you could do was watch others play, listen to them and steal from them! You’d watch their wrists and licks and think, ‘I’ll give that a while and stick it into something else.’”

When did guitar go from a hobby to a legitimate career path?

“I saw the Beatles’ A Hard Day’s Night, and there was just something about those guys holding those guitars, enjoying each other’s company, having a laugh and making great music. I had to do it – I just had to.

“I couldn’t see myself doing anything else. A career counselor at school said, ‘What if that doesn’t work out?’ I said, ‘It’s got to work out because that’s what I’m going to do.’ He said, ‘Yes… but let’s imagine that it doesn’t…’ I said, ‘I can’t do that.’”

You never considered giving up even when it got hard?

“There were loads of those moments. But you can’t give into those; you’ve got to put that aside and keep going. I had friends who said, ‘I’m going to get a part-time job to see me through; that’ll give me some money to pursue music.’ Many of them stopped being musicians because they relied on that income to keep bodies and souls together.”

How did you jump from playing on air force bases to kicking off your freelance career in the UK?

“When my dad retired from the US Air Force, the family moved back to England, where my mother was from. The Melody Maker music paper had loads of classifieds; I’d look every week to see if anybody needed a guitar player and worked my way up from there.”

One of your earliest gigs with The Animals’ Eric Burdon. What was that experience like?

“Eric is a special soul, almost like a father figure to me, being the big Animals fan I am. To work in that band was such an honor. But I’ve got to say, back then, in the ’80s, me and the rest of the band were not suited for his style. He needed an old-style bluesy, R&B kind of band.

“We were very ’80s; I had an Aria and an Ibanez, the Tom Scholz Rockman and four or five rack-mount units. Just terrible, awful! The ’80s never suited Eric. What he’s doing now is truer to his roots.”

You hooked up with Brian May in the early ’90s. How did that happen?

“I met him at the Freddie Mercury tribute at Wembley while I was playing with Bob Geldof. My old mate, Spike Edney – who still plays keyboards with Queen – said, ‘Come on, we’ll introduce you to Brian…’ Within six months, he put the Brian May Band together; Spike called me up and I got the gig.

“It was a fun thing. We did a world tour with Guns N’ Roses, opening for them. That was eventful – as you can imagine! I hung out with Slash quite a bit. I remember going out for a Mexican meal with him and his wife at the time. We were going up to his place after the restaurant, and he’d had a couple of drinks and was driving.

“His wife grabbed hold of the steering wheel because he was heading toward a canyon! Me and Spike were in the back seat going, ‘Nooooo!’ We ended up at his house, and that went on till four in the morning or something. Steve Lukather turned up and fell in the front door, which was hilarious. Luke is a very good friend now.”

The gig with Brian’s solo band gave way to Queen + Paul Rodgers. Did you need to alter your rig to accommodate the iconic Queen sound?

“When I auditioned with Brian for his band, I had this amp called the Fender 75, which was a combo. I had two of them and and old Strat that I still use. Brian said, ‘What a great guitar sound you’ve got!’

“Once we got to doing the Queen thing, I used that for a little while. One day Brian said, ‘How would you feel about using one of my Brian May guitars? Like a copy of mine?’ I said, ‘Yeah, sure,’ and I ended up doing that.

“I found it harder to use and control because all the switches and knobs are in a weird place. But Brian said, ‘I’ll get one made for you – just tell them if you want anything different.’ I got it, and Brian came to soundcheck and said, ‘Is that the new guitar?’ I said, ‘Yeah,’ and he said, ‘What’s that knob for?’

“I had an extra knob by the bridge in the same place a Strat volume knob would be, so I could use it with my little finger and make the sort of violin sounds. I said, ‘It’s a volume knob.’ He said, ‘Great idea. I should put mine there now!’ But he was just humoring me – he didn’t change anything.

“I did that because the volume knob on his guitar is near the jack socket, and it’s very difficult for me to keep adjusting it from there. But there were big discussions on the Queen tour: ‘Jamie’s guitar has got a third knob; what’s that one do?’

“When they modified my guitar, the one that was the volume knob, they left it on there. So, I put a little label on it that says ‘DFA,’ which stands for ‘Does Fuck All!’”

Did you gain a greater appreciation for Brian after playing alongside him?

“Oh, he’s staggeringly good and so creative. There is nobody else as individual as him. He’s unique, and he even built his guitar from scratch. The whole sound of it, the way it goes through the treble booster, is as unusual and fantastic as it gets. Playing next to him was such an honor.”

Is there a piece of advice Brian gave you that you’ve carried onward?

“He didn’t really hand out advice. But I’ve gotta say he was very generous with me. What I took away from it is: be yourself, be true to yourself, stick to whatever you say, and play as loud as you want or need to because that’s how the greats do it. That’s how Brian does it.”

Since leaving Queen, how has your rig evolved?

“I tried a Kemper, but I realized I’d need a degree in astrophysics to make it work! I went back to my Fender Hot Rod Deluxe, which works, and I use it for just about everything. Other than that, it’s whatever is appropriate for the gig. It’s easy to look at the gig and think, ‘Ah, I know what’ll work here.’”

Where do you go from here?

“I’ve got some gigs with my group Los Pacaminos, which is a thing with Paul Young that I’ve done for 32 years. I’ve another thing called Jamie and the Falcons, which is a party band. We’ve done parties for the ’Stones, Tina Turner, Paul McCartney and everybody, really.

“Then, I’ve got my SAS band with Spike Edney. We’ve got some stuff coming up before Christmas. It’s an all-star band; maybe we’ll have Roger Taylor and people like that. And I’ve got a Christmas album coming. It’s taken me three years, but I’ve done all of it and am really proud of it. It’ll be available on iTunes and wherever you get your music nowadays.”

• Moses’ album Crimbo With Jimbo – Christmas From Jamie’s House will be released in November. Check out Jamie Moses’ website for details and tour dates.